Why Are Prisoners Placed In Solitary Confinement

Solitary confinement is a mandated arrangement set up by courts or prisons which seek to punish inmates by the use of isolated confinement. Specifically, solitary confinement can be defined as confinement in which inmates that are held in a single cell for up to twenty-three hours a day without any contact with the exception of prison staff (Shalev, 2011). There are several other terms which refer to solitary confinement such as, administrative segregation, supermax facilities (this is due to the fact that supermax facilities only have solitary confinement), the hotbox, the hole, and the security housing unit (SHU). Solitary confinement is a place where most inmates would prefer not to go.

Four concrete walls, a steel bed, and a sink to soak the unclean clothes in as well as an insignificantly compact restroom. Welcome to solitary confinement where the lights always stay on and there’s always room for just one, you. When we think about solitary confinement we probably think of a killer or rapist getting what they deserve. What we don’t see is another human life being psychologically destroyed. Some of these prisoners have been in solitary confinement from a couple of years to decades. It is true that these are not honorable or peace keeping men, but a human life being tortured by solitude is a torture no one deserves.

In article 5 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it states that, “[n]o one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” It states this, yet there are humans kept in cells smaller than the average size of a queen bed (Chan). How is this not considered an inhuman or degrading punishment? While the wellbeing of prisoners can be easily overlooked, that does not mean it is not an important issue. It is unhealthy for prisoners to be kept in solitary confinement for a prolonged period of time because it is bad for their mental health, discriminates against certain groups, and it is expensive.

Solitary confinement has had a long history in the American prison system. America is the first country to adapt solitary confinement into the prison regiment. Pennsylvania had the first special housing units for inmates or “SHU”. When Europeans came to America to look at the new model for prisons in Pennsylvania they wrote reports describing to the European parliament on how prisoners were treated like caged animals. Many of them quickly realized that this was not what prisons were set out to accomplish. The purpose of a prison is to rehabilitate criminals and bring them back into society as an individual that has the best mental tools and skills to make their respective communities better. Putting inmates in solitary confinement for more than 48 hours can only lead to awful emotional pain and mental problems which can result in self-destructive behavior to regain the self-control that is being deprived through this process of isolation and expulsion.

Solitary confinement is occasionally used in most prison systems as a means to maintain prison order. Mainly for disciplinary punishment, or as a place to put inmates that are at escape risk, or a risk to themselves and prison order. Sometimes inmates that are sex offenders voluntarily choose solitary as a means of protection from other prisoners. Sometimes solitary can be used to hold pretrial detainees to prevent them from messing with witness, so they can’t try and force a confession. For 23 hours a day inmates are confined to the barren environment that is their cell with high surveillance (Smith, Peter Scharff, 2006.) Inmates have no social contact. Visits and phone calls are infrequent and highly restricted. Visits sometime only take place via video screens. The physical contact one experiences is limited to the interaction with prison guards, weather it be putting on restraints or taking them off.

When Jacki Murillo entered the juvenile justice system at age 12 she was placed in the innocuously named SHU. SHU, or secure housing unit, is the clever name for solitary confinement. It’s clever because we’re starting to reach a place in our society where we recognize the dangers and inhumanity of solitary confinement, especially for juveniles. However, there is no difference between SHU and solitary confinement. In a SHU, juveniles usually spend 23 hours in a cell. There are two kinds of solitary confinement: administrative and punitive. For example, Jacki was placed in solitary confinement for administrative reasons because California law called for all children under 14 to be removed from and protected from general population. Solitary confinement can also be a punishment. Kalief Browder famously spent 800 days in solitary confinement, mostly as punishment for various infractions. Solitary confinement is not rare for juveniles. Over 33% of juveniles reported spending time in solitary and more than half of those kids reported spending over 24 consecutive hours in solitary.

According to “Solitary Confinement: Common Misconceptions and Emerging Safe Alternatives” by Alison Shames, Jessa Wilcox, and Ram Subramanian on the Vera Institute of Justice, solitary confinement is often sentenced to “fulfill a prison’s or jail’s top priority: the safety of its staff and the incarcerated people under their care.” (Shames, Wilcox, & Subramanian, 2015). However, most inmates that are placed in solitary confinement are

Solitary confinement has long evolved from what it used to be just one-hundred years ago. According to Jason Breslow, in his article What Does Solitary Confinement Do To Your Mind?, in the last century “a typical stay in solitary amounted to just a few days, or several weeks in more extreme cases” but in this century it isn’t uncommon for this time period to be extended to years. It was believed that a few days of isolation would make the inmates reflect on their actions and try to change them for the better. In theory it should work; after all, we have a similar practice for our kids when they misbehave. We place our kids in short time-outs to make them reflect about what they did, so in theory, the more severe the crime, the longer the

Over the last couple of decades, prison systems have adopted the use of solitary confinement as a means of punishment and have progressively depended on it to help maintain obedience and discipline inside the prison structure. Solitary confinement is a form of incarceration in which a prisoner is isolated in a cell for multiple hours, days, or weeks with limited to no human contact. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the United States represents only 5% of the world's population yet houses 20% of the world’s prisoners (ACLU). Two of the biggest problems with our modern day criminal justice system is the overwhelming number of people that are incarcerated in the United States and the overwhelming number of convicts who return

While solitary confinement is one of the most effective ways of keeping todays prisoners from conflict and communication, it is also the most detrimental to their health. According to NPR the reason for most solitary confinement units in America “is to control the prison gangs (NPR, 2011).” But that is not always the case. Sometimes putting a gang member in solitary reduces the shock and awe effect that it is supposed to have, when they start losing their minds. The prisoners kept in solitary confinement show more psychotic symptoms than that of a normal prisoner, including a higher suicide rate. Once a prisoner’s mental capacity to understand why he is in prison and why he is being punished is gone, there is no reason to keep said

A popular punishment technique used by parents known as time-out is also being used in various prisons around the world. Inmates are sent to solitary confinement as a consequence of acting out, which is comparable to how a child is put in time-out when misbehaving. Solitary confinement is a method of imprisonment used to isolate troubled inmates from the rest of the prison. Despite this method being extremely effective in keeping inmates out of conflicts with others, the conditions they are held in are harmful to their health. Solitary confinement should be permanently banned from all prisons because of the life-threatening psychological and physiological effects it has on inmates, it’s unconstitutional, and the living conditions within the

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Solitary Confinement is the confinement of a prisoner in a cell or other place which he or she is completely isolated from any and everyone. Merriam Webster also states that even some prisoners are held from 22.5 to 24 hours a day. Solitary confinement is sometimes referred to as isolation, segregation, separation, and cellular confinements so that it seems different from solitary confinement or too make it sound like a less harsh punishment. Solitary Confinement is a huge controversy in today’s society, although some might of forgot due to the fact that there’s an orange oompa loompa celebrity as our president, but this has been a problem since it was introduced in 1829. “In 1829, the first experiment in solitary confinement was at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. It was based on a Quaker belief that prisoners isolated in stone cells with only a Bible would use the time to repent, pray and find introspection.”(Timeline on NPR.org) A large population of people believe that solitary confinement is a violation against anyone 's human rights. On the other side of this argument, some people believe it is a necessary form of punishment and that it does not violate anyone’s human or constitutional rights. In my personal opinion, Solitary confinement violates both the 8th Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article five of the Declaration of Human Rights. I don’t understand how isolating someone for that

Solitary Confinement can actually cause mental health issues. People can literally go insane because of no interaction with people and being in isolation all the time. Some people get so bad that they have to be take and put in a straight jacket in a padded room. For 23 hours a day inmates are kept in a room a little smaller than a horse stable, and the only time they have to get out is when it’s time for them to be outside. Some prisons don’t even do that. All they do is give them food through a little whole in the door. (Front

However, many sentences can range from weeks, months, years, and even decades. Solitary confinement is a punishment given to inmates from the prison staff; these prison officials serve as police officers, prosecutors, witnesses, judges, and jury members (Casella, Ridgeway 19). The most common misconception is that solitary confinement is a punishment of last resort,when in reality, it has been used so frequently that prisoners can be given time in “the box” for minor rule violations as well as all major offenses (Casella, Ridgeway 20). Frequent reasons for solitary confinement include disturbances and demonstrations, and these offenses can range from mouthing off to guards to instigating riots. Another reason for punishment time is known as “dirty urine.”

Since the early 1800s, the United States has relied on a method of punishment barely known to any other country, solitary confinement (Cole). Despite this method once being thought of as the breakthrough in the prison system, history has proved differently. Solitary confinement was once used in a short period of time to fix a prisoners behavior, but is now used as a long term method that shows to prove absolutely nothing. Spending 22-24 hours a day in a small room containing practically nothing has proved to fix nothing in a person except further insanity. One cannot rid himself of insanity in a room that causes them to go insane. Solitary confinement is a flawed and unnecessary method of punishment that should be prohibited in the prison